Jon Stewart Quotes

We would like to return to work with our writers. If we cannot, we would like to express our ambivalence, but without our writers, we are unable to express something as nuanced as ambivalence.

So what was work? Tasks we performed for compensation in the service of an employer, be it an individual or a corporate entity. And yes, it was as exciting as it sounds.

We didn't want to work. In fact, that's about as good a definition of work as you could have: that which we didn't want to do, but had to if we didn't want to eat dirt.

"You spent so much time being a hostess you forgot to be a woman. And now the time is right for making love, but your vagina is a mess. I've been there... and it's not a good thing. You have got to remember Party Rule #1: There is no party as important as the party you're about to throw in your vagina. " — Jon Stewart, "Martha Stewart's Vagina"

[Politicans] are salespeople. Instead of rotisserie ovens they are selling this idea of preemptive war or social-security reforms.

Comedy doesn't change the world, but it's a bell-weather. We're the banana peel in the coal mine. When a society is under threat, comedians are the ones who get sent away first. It's just a reminder that democracy is under threat. Authoritarians are the threat -- to comedy, to art, to music, to thought, to poetry, to progress, to all those things! It's never been-- All that shit, it's a red herring. It ain't the Pronoun Police, it's the Secret Police. It always has been, and it always will be. And this man's decapitated visage is a reminder to all of us that what we have is fragile and precious. And the way to guard against it isn't to change how audiences think, it's to change how leaders lead.

It's not the Woke Police that are gonna be an existential threat to comedy. It's not the Fresh Prince, it's the Crown Prince. It's not the fragility of audiences, it's the fragility of leaders.

What we do is an iterative business. It's a grind. It's work. The best amongst us just keeps at it.

I carry around, always, a quote by Twain, it-- It just so happens that I am never without it. And it's about ideas, and the quote is: "The radical invents the views. But when he has worn them out the conservative adopts them." And I keep that with me as a reminder that, even for Twain, they're not all fucking gems.

If you like to do dumb shit -- which is something I like very much to do -- I cannot recommend more, creating a small child who also likes to do dumb shit. Because you can do the dumb shit and say "That's what he wanted!"

You're not your circumstances, you're not what happens to you, you're what you make of it.

Black don't crack. But Jews... we age like avocados.

This is a wonderful award, to see all my friends here and all the people I've worked with through the years, it reminds me of just how many people I carried.

You think regular people get to surround themselves with a meat shield of henchmen to go to prison in their place?

Is a permanent underclass a necessity for American capitalism?

For however sincerely we want to reckon and listen, the truth is America has always prioritized white comfort over black survival. Black people have had to fight so hard for equality that they've been irreparably set back in the pursuit of equity. And any real attempt to... uh, repa-- reparat-- repair. A ton. Of that damage. [whispering] Reparation. [normal voice] Sets off white people's "they're coming for our shit" alarm. Which we would know ourselves, had we actually been listening.